My problem is when I turn on extended desktop it streches my desktop in between both screens and puts the menubar on the screen I just plugged in. However, my icons are still on my laptops main screen.

Is there anyway i can keep the laptop screen as primary?

The laptop is a Sony Vaio VGN-NS110E if that matters. I has the Intel GMA 4500M HD card.

I tried to find something about this but I ended up in the second failed search todayFar to much ads for laptops in the search result or dual core instead of dual monitorsHave you tried the "Screen Resolutions" applet?

That was my first place to look. It only does resolution change. It sees the screen and recognizes what they both are(internal and external), but it doesn't show any option to change which one is the primary.

Has linux always stretched the desktop so that when full screen apps like the media player stretch across both?

Husse wrote:I don't recognise it, but there is a guy that has a slightly similar problem with an Intel graphicsI have very limited time for anything but my job this week, but I'll try to find something

I thought of this and the other guy while I worked yesterday (I'm nowhere near a computer) The x server writes (paints - I don't really know which word to use) the screen in four quadrantsYou both have the upper left quadrant "filled in" the rest either garbled as in your case or blackI chatted with AvanceIT about among other things this problem (really not yours but the other guy) and he said he had only heard of it in some cases of a misconfigured SolarisI've never seen it, the closest I've seen is when in Win98 if you select to low a resolution large portions of the screen ends up outside the monitor.I hope I can find something about it, but it is odd and may drown in more normal errors ....

I had a feeling, I'm almost fully sure the drivers work fine because I can get full 1280X800 on my laptop screen. There is a few times where it will "work" but instead of making two different desktops like normal, it makes it like I am using the Matrox DualHead2Go thing, meaning it takes the main display and takes that desktop and stretches it over to the second screen.

This will give you a printout in homeTo find out about the range you can run xvidtune - don't use it to change anything, just display - it's a rather powerful tool(May not work on DVI) Unfortunately I don't know how to use it on dual monitors....

Starting fiddling with all this again, and the dual screens seem to only work if I restart with the display connected. It still puts the menubar on the second scree, but I think I fixed it by moving it to my laptops screen and shutting it down with the everything how I want it.

christopher@Sony-Vaio ~ $ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf# xorg.conf (X.Org X Window System server configuration file)## This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using# values from the debconf database.## Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.# (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)## This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg# package.## Note that some configuration settings that could be done previously# in this file, now are automatically configured by the server and settings# here are ignored.## If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated# again, run the following command:# sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Ah- nothing much hiddenThe virtual in xorg.conf should be the sum of both screens I thinkThere is a powerful command line tool called xrandr that may help youhttps://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Config/ResolutionAt least that is a starting point